Hi Kevin - will listen and being a Christian I think that ' violence is always wrong' is not dogma in Christianity. Christ went after the money changers Himself. And Christ will return ' in the clouds of Heaven' He's not coming back physically and the entire Apocalypse has to happen first. Maybe 35,000 more years. And ' turning the other cheek ' is more about forgiveness than about abstinence from violence. Although they're much maligned - the Templars, according to Rudolf Steiner were a highly Christian group of men. Not the Crusaders, but the Templars, which were never more than about 150 men.
Good point, Ann. Actually, Catholic just war theory is almost identical to Islamic just war theory. So Girardian Christianity, assuming it's pacifist, is just one of many "Christian" approaches.
Kevin, after listening to this interesting discussion I thought of Matthew Fox, an excommunicated Dominican now an Episcopal priest. Though I really connect with his mystical creation spirituality which reminds me of the things I hear about Sufism, Fox doesn't have the depth of deep state politics like Dr. E Michael Jones. I would love to listen to a discussion Between Jones and Fox. Fox has done work with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. May be if it interests you in inviting Fox here's his contact page, but I don't know if he'll cut you short like your other guest. Really sad if he does cause I think Fox's insights are quite deep. https://www.matthewfox.org/contact-1 .
Just emailed him: ":I am writing to request a podcast interview with Matthew Fox. Current live openings include Fridays beginning December 6, 10 to 11 a.m. Pacific, via Skype video.
I hold a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies with a focus on Moroccan Sufism, and for the past two decades have been following the “maghrebian malamati” tradition of speaking shocking truth to power. https://news.wisc.edu/archive/barrettissue/
I’m intrigued by Matthew Fox’s vision of a nonviolent planetary revolution driven by mysticism and would love to have a conversation about it."
This is great. I very much look forward to this. Just hope he accepts the invitation. Fox's books were introduced to me by a friend who spent 10yrs as a Franciscan monk.
Fox believes that the CIA had a hand in the death of the Dominican monk named Thomas Merton. According to James Douglas' book, Merton was in regular contact with RFK Sr.'s wife, Ethel Kennedy, over his concern of nuclear war.
Below is a link to Fox's comments on the book by Martin and Turley on Merton's suspicious death. If I recall correctly you had done an interview with a Catholic priest whereby he talked to you about the revelations in this book.
After I heard Fox having no doubt of a CIA connection into Merton's death I was dumbfounded with the few things I heard him say about COVID, Russia, Trump, etc... It was all very shallow. Lacked nuance.
Here's the quote from Fox on Russia and the CIA which made me flip. It's from the link above I sent you: "History evolves and it is ironic that today’s CIA is less an enemy of the people than yesterday’s - in fact acting in some ways a welcome buffer against today’s enemies of American democracy, whether emanating from Russia or from internal bodies beholden to Russia. But lessons abound. First among them is what a martyr is about: As Jesus put it, “no greater love has a person than this, to lay down one’s life for their friends.”
During COVID I felt left-out from my Catholic Church cause a priest I consulted from Saint-Joseph's Oratory, including a spiritual guide, and a priest I know from childhood didn't see the abuse of power and science during COVID. I felt being scolded even though I had applied myself as an activist in defending the most marginalized and ending up with two police infractions and four court appearances for not obeying govt mandates and fearful of job loss for refusing mRNA shots.
Here is the perspective I'd like to offer on Jesus. The gospels were written in Greek after Rome crushed the Judean rebellion, in 70 CE. So when Jesus curses the Judeans and calls them the spawn of Satan, you should picture them as Hamas and Hezbollah. When he throws out the moneychangers, think of them as Gaddafi and Laurent Gbagbo trying to set up the Pan-African dinar instead of the CFA franc. When Jesus says 'turn the other cheek,' 'go the extra mile,' 'do good to those who harm you,' he's speaking to Palestinian mothers whose children were shot. I could make an analogy to the rape of male prisoners with turning the other cheek, but I think you get my point.
If we put this in today's context, Jesus is a pro-Israeli Palestinian with an Israeli name who's speaking Hebrew, which is the same as a Judean then with a Hellenic name (no J in Aramaic) who's speaking Greek, even in the direct quotes of the parables. They use tropes and plays on words that don't work in Hebrew. He's telling Palestinians to render unto Israel what is Israel's--their labor, their land, their homes. When their rebellion on Oct 7th inadvertently gets him executed, even though he is an Israeli collaborator, he forgives Netanyahu and the IDF, who 'knew not what they did.' But as for Hamas and the Palestinians, they will forever have the guilt of killing him as an innocent victim.
We know that the Torah is an inversion of the truth, we know that about the world wars, about JFK and 911, about the CovidCon. Why do we think that the story of Jesus has to be the God's honest truth and the greatest violence ever wreaked in the world by the Holy Roman Empire was just a misinterpretation? It doesn't make sense to me that we're not willing to question this.
That is a "different" take on Jesus, Tereza! But not a very useful one for us pro-Jesus people ; - ) I think Jesus was more "radical" than the other prophets in the sense that he was going to the root of existence, consciousness, and insisting that consciousness alone can completely transform ordinary matter-in-spacetime existence, which (if you accept it as a given reality) is pretty hellish. I've been reading about the Cathars and other gnostics, and I think some of them were at least partly right about Jesus, which is why the powers and principalities of this prison planet crucified them.
This podcast was a lot of fun.*Allmighty Jesus Christ said in luke....**Let Him who has no sword sell his shirt and buy one.*Kevin means well but he and fabulous self tormenting jasun are fighting head
and academic word games somewhat..... ..fact ..no one can successfully make up their own religion*for long .....soon...paradijm cosmic changes..... wars ...apocalypse .... crisis of conscience...scenario s... demonic phenomena appear exploding serpentine like.... from the preternatural realm...Kevin you seek to establish your personalized view of Islam....But Allmighty Jesus Christ does not need request or desire a Pope..a new *would ---be Christ---substitute......**He is not only Alive but is the. absolute Final Judge *Kevin you mean the best but even if Islam may have massive conversion numbers .... that doesn't mean it's the best and final revelation...You were excellent on the judaizer elements but sorry..that is only one fraction... ..or..perhaps the Jewdevil reality...is ..the most horrifying part of postmodern reality..point stands..Muslims cannot replace Jesus with Islam..fact. Christians are Not Christ...**jasun was surprisingly balanced diplomatic and obviously striving for objectivity..jasun did strive to stay on point..focused ... if occasionally. tepid... he is obviously trying to grow spiritually in. a very different non Islamic way. from your perspective....you call Islam a type of Christianity**it is Not.. Christ ...let alone ..*Christianity---does not need any new sectarian variations or new man made hero prophets****..Jesus Himself is More than Sufficient for All Things**.At best some points of Islam are Neo -chrristian..small c......... ..**no question the subject of absurd darwinist Girard got lost a bit..but hey Kevin..we perceive intuitively your good intent ......your intellectual struggles... your justified horror and morally correct stance on Isreal Holicausting..genocding..exterminating.....ethnically cleansing...Palestine......but in this lost..skewered ..postmodern Jew super parasited era...it always come back to bite all who erroneously insist.... it's just Zionists**Wrong**it...is..nesecery to simply quote Jesus on The Jews.....best place to start .....John 8v 44... Rev 2v9....rev 3v9.....don't let the Jewdevil brainwashing make you guilty...THE JEWS
always did and the Jews Do themselves in...every time**.by their toledoth yeshu satanic hatred towards Allmighty Jesus Christ ...bybtheir 2vole talmud filth****.were not papists were not Catholics or mainline protestants that..jasun rightly separates himself from.......
Solution----- just seek Allmighty Jesus ....Islam is wrong to call Jesus only a prophet on the level of Mohamed**We love all our Muslim friends but as Armed Pro 2A type Non sectarian Christians..we don't back off from what we experience as truth ..as Revelation.....we don't accept any iteration of tribal occultism like the Synagogue of Satan**Hope that helps.*Fun podcast in any case.*Finally some politically correct effete Virtue Signalling folk ..low information ....pusilanimous inerudite peoples.still ..don't know that **you cannot serve The Heavenly Father and the Synagogue of Satan**Too bad for them...
The voice of integrity will ultimately prevail..meritorious words ..not academic neoliberal pretentious double minded occult artifice…… ……you are Welcome… Sir.
The historical context of the time in which the gospels were written comprise the only facts we know for sure. There's no mention of Jesus by any historian of that era, except the Testimonium Flavianum, supposedly written in 93-94 CE by Josephus under the Emperor Vespasian, who he had declared the Messiah to save his skin when he was captured. He became Vespasian's adopted son when his prediction that he'd be the Emperor came true.
Josephus hated the zealots, who he saw as deserving the torture and slaughter they got. The Judeans considered him a traitor, who gave up the Galilean army after 3 days. The War of the Judeans makes this clear (the word Jew wasn't coined until the 18th c.) and I've done this article comparing his use of the word translated 'thief' or 'robber' to the use in the gospels, where both irrefutably mean rebel against Rome: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/jesus-rebel-or-imperialist?
Joe Atwill in Caesar's Messiah shows by word order analysis that the parallels between Josephus' writing and the gospels would be impossible by chance. So either Josephus wrote the gospels or both his writings and the gospels were written by the same person. Joe is a friend and admirer of my research, and has been a pleasure to compare notes with.
But the only existing copies of Josephus in the original Greek are from the 10th c. Laurent's work gives new possibilities when he shows all the forgeries that made up the first millennia CE because a 'pope' decided his reign should be the year 1000. Up to 700 yrs were fabricated, according to his sources. An earlier Testimonium is from a 10th c. Arabic source from Hieropolis, with a family name related to Constantine. Another is from a 12th c. Syrian source but both were 'discovered' by the same Israeli scholar in 1971.
So Jesus may well be a literary character since the details of the gospels are contradicted by history, linguistics, archeology and politics. And his character may have been invented in the 9th to 10th c. But your statement is very intriguing that "he was going to the root of existence, consciousness, and insisting that consciousness alone can completely transform ordinary matter-in-spacetime existence."
This is exactly what I think that Judas the Nazarene and Zadok the Pharisee found. They empowered the Judeans to be fearless and, according to Josephus who hated them, even the children seemed impervious to torture. The gospels are a mix of truth and lies, so what you're recognizing in them may have be that truth, then made impotent by saying that it only applied to Jesus. I think the Christ is the one who recognizes the Christ in others, not the one who says, "Worship me." Thanks for the impetus to think this through and research it, Kevin.
Hi Kevin - will listen and being a Christian I think that ' violence is always wrong' is not dogma in Christianity. Christ went after the money changers Himself. And Christ will return ' in the clouds of Heaven' He's not coming back physically and the entire Apocalypse has to happen first. Maybe 35,000 more years. And ' turning the other cheek ' is more about forgiveness than about abstinence from violence. Although they're much maligned - the Templars, according to Rudolf Steiner were a highly Christian group of men. Not the Crusaders, but the Templars, which were never more than about 150 men.
Good point, Ann. Actually, Catholic just war theory is almost identical to Islamic just war theory. So Girardian Christianity, assuming it's pacifist, is just one of many "Christian" approaches.
Ann write a beautiful commentary..God bless..and God Speed Ann.**
thank you dear.
Your unexpected adoreable reply is welcome as are you…**
Kevin, after listening to this interesting discussion I thought of Matthew Fox, an excommunicated Dominican now an Episcopal priest. Though I really connect with his mystical creation spirituality which reminds me of the things I hear about Sufism, Fox doesn't have the depth of deep state politics like Dr. E Michael Jones. I would love to listen to a discussion Between Jones and Fox. Fox has done work with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake. May be if it interests you in inviting Fox here's his contact page, but I don't know if he'll cut you short like your other guest. Really sad if he does cause I think Fox's insights are quite deep. https://www.matthewfox.org/contact-1 .
Just emailed him: ":I am writing to request a podcast interview with Matthew Fox. Current live openings include Fridays beginning December 6, 10 to 11 a.m. Pacific, via Skype video.
I hold a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies with a focus on Moroccan Sufism, and for the past two decades have been following the “maghrebian malamati” tradition of speaking shocking truth to power. https://news.wisc.edu/archive/barrettissue/
I’m intrigued by Matthew Fox’s vision of a nonviolent planetary revolution driven by mysticism and would love to have a conversation about it."
This is great. I very much look forward to this. Just hope he accepts the invitation. Fox's books were introduced to me by a friend who spent 10yrs as a Franciscan monk.
Fox believes that the CIA had a hand in the death of the Dominican monk named Thomas Merton. According to James Douglas' book, Merton was in regular contact with RFK Sr.'s wife, Ethel Kennedy, over his concern of nuclear war.
Below is a link to Fox's comments on the book by Martin and Turley on Merton's suspicious death. If I recall correctly you had done an interview with a Catholic priest whereby he talked to you about the revelations in this book.
https://www.matthewfox.org/blog/a-review-of-the-martyrdom-of-thomas-merton-an-investigation
After I heard Fox having no doubt of a CIA connection into Merton's death I was dumbfounded with the few things I heard him say about COVID, Russia, Trump, etc... It was all very shallow. Lacked nuance.
Here's the quote from Fox on Russia and the CIA which made me flip. It's from the link above I sent you: "History evolves and it is ironic that today’s CIA is less an enemy of the people than yesterday’s - in fact acting in some ways a welcome buffer against today’s enemies of American democracy, whether emanating from Russia or from internal bodies beholden to Russia. But lessons abound. First among them is what a martyr is about: As Jesus put it, “no greater love has a person than this, to lay down one’s life for their friends.”
During COVID I felt left-out from my Catholic Church cause a priest I consulted from Saint-Joseph's Oratory, including a spiritual guide, and a priest I know from childhood didn't see the abuse of power and science during COVID. I felt being scolded even though I had applied myself as an activist in defending the most marginalized and ending up with two police infractions and four court appearances for not obeying govt mandates and fearful of job loss for refusing mRNA shots.
Thanks, Michael. Fox sounds very interesting. I will try to get an interview. I doubt very much he'd be problematic in the way Warner was.
Hi, Kevin. I've done some episodes on Jasun and we've communicated before. We had this conversation about Girard, among other things: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/having-words-peter-duke-and-jasun/comment/62711250. I also mentioned his courageous dive into 'Ron Unz vs the Bolshy Jews': https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/fiddler-on-the-truth.
Here is the perspective I'd like to offer on Jesus. The gospels were written in Greek after Rome crushed the Judean rebellion, in 70 CE. So when Jesus curses the Judeans and calls them the spawn of Satan, you should picture them as Hamas and Hezbollah. When he throws out the moneychangers, think of them as Gaddafi and Laurent Gbagbo trying to set up the Pan-African dinar instead of the CFA franc. When Jesus says 'turn the other cheek,' 'go the extra mile,' 'do good to those who harm you,' he's speaking to Palestinian mothers whose children were shot. I could make an analogy to the rape of male prisoners with turning the other cheek, but I think you get my point.
If we put this in today's context, Jesus is a pro-Israeli Palestinian with an Israeli name who's speaking Hebrew, which is the same as a Judean then with a Hellenic name (no J in Aramaic) who's speaking Greek, even in the direct quotes of the parables. They use tropes and plays on words that don't work in Hebrew. He's telling Palestinians to render unto Israel what is Israel's--their labor, their land, their homes. When their rebellion on Oct 7th inadvertently gets him executed, even though he is an Israeli collaborator, he forgives Netanyahu and the IDF, who 'knew not what they did.' But as for Hamas and the Palestinians, they will forever have the guilt of killing him as an innocent victim.
We know that the Torah is an inversion of the truth, we know that about the world wars, about JFK and 911, about the CovidCon. Why do we think that the story of Jesus has to be the God's honest truth and the greatest violence ever wreaked in the world by the Holy Roman Empire was just a misinterpretation? It doesn't make sense to me that we're not willing to question this.
That is a "different" take on Jesus, Tereza! But not a very useful one for us pro-Jesus people ; - ) I think Jesus was more "radical" than the other prophets in the sense that he was going to the root of existence, consciousness, and insisting that consciousness alone can completely transform ordinary matter-in-spacetime existence, which (if you accept it as a given reality) is pretty hellish. I've been reading about the Cathars and other gnostics, and I think some of them were at least partly right about Jesus, which is why the powers and principalities of this prison planet crucified them.
This podcast was a lot of fun.*Allmighty Jesus Christ said in luke....**Let Him who has no sword sell his shirt and buy one.*Kevin means well but he and fabulous self tormenting jasun are fighting head
and academic word games somewhat..... ..fact ..no one can successfully make up their own religion*for long .....soon...paradijm cosmic changes..... wars ...apocalypse .... crisis of conscience...scenario s... demonic phenomena appear exploding serpentine like.... from the preternatural realm...Kevin you seek to establish your personalized view of Islam....But Allmighty Jesus Christ does not need request or desire a Pope..a new *would ---be Christ---substitute......**He is not only Alive but is the. absolute Final Judge *Kevin you mean the best but even if Islam may have massive conversion numbers .... that doesn't mean it's the best and final revelation...You were excellent on the judaizer elements but sorry..that is only one fraction... ..or..perhaps the Jewdevil reality...is ..the most horrifying part of postmodern reality..point stands..Muslims cannot replace Jesus with Islam..fact. Christians are Not Christ...**jasun was surprisingly balanced diplomatic and obviously striving for objectivity..jasun did strive to stay on point..focused ... if occasionally. tepid... he is obviously trying to grow spiritually in. a very different non Islamic way. from your perspective....you call Islam a type of Christianity**it is Not.. Christ ...let alone ..*Christianity---does not need any new sectarian variations or new man made hero prophets****..Jesus Himself is More than Sufficient for All Things**.At best some points of Islam are Neo -chrristian..small c......... ..**no question the subject of absurd darwinist Girard got lost a bit..but hey Kevin..we perceive intuitively your good intent ......your intellectual struggles... your justified horror and morally correct stance on Isreal Holicausting..genocding..exterminating.....ethnically cleansing...Palestine......but in this lost..skewered ..postmodern Jew super parasited era...it always come back to bite all who erroneously insist.... it's just Zionists**Wrong**it...is..nesecery to simply quote Jesus on The Jews.....best place to start .....John 8v 44... Rev 2v9....rev 3v9.....don't let the Jewdevil brainwashing make you guilty...THE JEWS
always did and the Jews Do themselves in...every time**.by their toledoth yeshu satanic hatred towards Allmighty Jesus Christ ...bybtheir 2vole talmud filth****.were not papists were not Catholics or mainline protestants that..jasun rightly separates himself from.......
Solution----- just seek Allmighty Jesus ....Islam is wrong to call Jesus only a prophet on the level of Mohamed**We love all our Muslim friends but as Armed Pro 2A type Non sectarian Christians..we don't back off from what we experience as truth ..as Revelation.....we don't accept any iteration of tribal occultism like the Synagogue of Satan**Hope that helps.*Fun podcast in any case.*Finally some politically correct effete Virtue Signalling folk ..low information ....pusilanimous inerudite peoples.still ..don't know that **you cannot serve The Heavenly Father and the Synagogue of Satan**Too bad for them...
Typos..holocausting genociding. exterminating...**By their 2 vile Talmud filth.....*****Free Palestine***End the degenerate satanic reprobate homicidal Jew race supremacist blooddripping. Zionist judeao bolshevist fake isreali entity...**
I fully support the use of violence against the Evil Forces of Darkness. They're quick enough to use it against the Children of Light.
Excellent comment Michael.**
Many thanks for your kind words.
The voice of integrity will ultimately prevail..meritorious words ..not academic neoliberal pretentious double minded occult artifice…… ……you are Welcome… Sir.
This is my answer to our conversation here, Kevin: https://kevinbarrett.substack.com/p/jasun-horsley-on-rene-girard-religion/comment/78591225. Substack changed their reply format so it won't post more than a line, so this is my workaround before they fix it. And I appreciate you engaging on this subject of whether Jesus was an anti-imperial radical.
The historical context of the time in which the gospels were written comprise the only facts we know for sure. There's no mention of Jesus by any historian of that era, except the Testimonium Flavianum, supposedly written in 93-94 CE by Josephus under the Emperor Vespasian, who he had declared the Messiah to save his skin when he was captured. He became Vespasian's adopted son when his prediction that he'd be the Emperor came true.
Josephus hated the zealots, who he saw as deserving the torture and slaughter they got. The Judeans considered him a traitor, who gave up the Galilean army after 3 days. The War of the Judeans makes this clear (the word Jew wasn't coined until the 18th c.) and I've done this article comparing his use of the word translated 'thief' or 'robber' to the use in the gospels, where both irrefutably mean rebel against Rome: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/jesus-rebel-or-imperialist?
Joe Atwill in Caesar's Messiah shows by word order analysis that the parallels between Josephus' writing and the gospels would be impossible by chance. So either Josephus wrote the gospels or both his writings and the gospels were written by the same person. Joe is a friend and admirer of my research, and has been a pleasure to compare notes with.
But the only existing copies of Josephus in the original Greek are from the 10th c. Laurent's work gives new possibilities when he shows all the forgeries that made up the first millennia CE because a 'pope' decided his reign should be the year 1000. Up to 700 yrs were fabricated, according to his sources. An earlier Testimonium is from a 10th c. Arabic source from Hieropolis, with a family name related to Constantine. Another is from a 12th c. Syrian source but both were 'discovered' by the same Israeli scholar in 1971.
So Jesus may well be a literary character since the details of the gospels are contradicted by history, linguistics, archeology and politics. And his character may have been invented in the 9th to 10th c. But your statement is very intriguing that "he was going to the root of existence, consciousness, and insisting that consciousness alone can completely transform ordinary matter-in-spacetime existence."
This is exactly what I think that Judas the Nazarene and Zadok the Pharisee found. They empowered the Judeans to be fearless and, according to Josephus who hated them, even the children seemed impervious to torture. The gospels are a mix of truth and lies, so what you're recognizing in them may have be that truth, then made impotent by saying that it only applied to Jesus. I think the Christ is the one who recognizes the Christ in others, not the one who says, "Worship me." Thanks for the impetus to think this through and research it, Kevin.
Interesting! You might like my interviews with Joseph Atwill https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_joseph-atwill-did-caesar-invent-jesus/ and David Skrbina https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_david-skrbina-on-the-jesus-hoax/ .
Oh excellent! I'll definitely check those out. Thanks, Kevin!
Deified